


Nobody Needs to Know

by threefacade



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen, M/M, exhausted and despondent worth, punch a man so hard you unlock backstory, see it if you squint relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefacade/pseuds/threefacade
Summary: For the record, medicine isn't miracles. He's not really sure what it'll take for other people to get that through their thick skulls.A re-write of The Oaths They Take, almost five years later.
Relationships: Conrad Achenleck/Doc Worth, Worth/Contempt for his life path
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Nobody Needs to Know

When shit goes south with a dullahan, Worth spends about two hours cleaning wounds, applying runes, and swearing at any little thing that moves. Hanna’s out for the night, medicated to a comfortable sleep on Worth’s insistence that he needs to be asleep unless he makes a break for it to go chasing after the monster again. He puts tall, dark, and dead in charge of making sure he stays asleep, but leaving the room gives him the perfect opportunity to start antagonizing a vampire the second he starts asking questions.

It’s an awful goddamn pantomime they’ve got going on. Someone gets hurt, someone starts yelling, someone starts punching. It’s a social re-run, with the dialogue blurring together with past arguments. It’s remixed and retooled, and suddenly calling someone a cunt seems fresh and exciting. What’s less fresh would be the right hook to the jaw, knuckles scraping just barely against teeth.

In their equal defenses, bickering about how much effort Worth had put into stabilizing Hanna probably was going to end with someone swinging. A lot of bloody rage for his apparent ineptitude as a medical professional, a lot of misplaced wish-upon-a-star bullshit about what medicine can do and how fast it works.

“Medicine ain’t magic, an’ I’m not some fuckin fairy. You, maybe. Not me.”

The comment is spat out with a tall leer and a bandaged hand running across his face, attention paid to a busted lip. The indignant look Conrad gives Worth isn’t anything new, but there’s a flash of what, regret? That maybe behind all of the bastard bravado there’s something that makes him feel some kind of _guilt_ for hitting him? Shame isn’t tolerated in the clinic, usually.

Worth crosses his arms over his chest when he realizes the silence is punctuated by that stare. “He’s gonna be out fer awhile. Y’can leave if yer gonna just stare at me like that.”

Conrad blinks himself out of the daze, mirroring the crossed arms in a bout of defensiveness. “I expected you to punch me back.”

He doesn’t expect the doctor to roll his eyes, a sigh like a heavy hiss before moving away from his position in their little stage at the center of the clinic, meandering back to a filing cabinet behind his desk. Conrad follows, if only out of morbid curiosity when he hears him mutter _don’t feel like it_ as a response. 

“Wait, wait,” Conrad says, hand dropping onto the scuffed surface of Worth’s desk, only to immediately retract it when he comes into contact with some sort of slick substance that sticks to his hand for a moment. “You’re _pissed_.”

Worth doesn’t dignify the analysis with a response, hissing and cursing at the filing cabinet when he rattles it loose on its bearings. It groans and screeches on the rails, metal screams against metal— the contents inside clattering with a glassy clatter and wet noise. It’s enough to cause some flinching on Conrad’s behalf, vampire senses be damned.

When Worth turns around, he’s got a handle of tequila in hand and a neutral glare on his face. He sidles closer to Conrad, lean-sitting against the edge of the desk and unscrewing the cap of the bottle with deadened abandon. It’s unnatural, his silence stilted and the level of visible malice in him dropped to a complete standstill. It’d be _pleasant_ if it didn’t manage to fill Conrad with curious dread.

“Don’t tell me you grew a conscience after I decked you,” Conrad says, if only to goad Worth into acting more like himself and less like a haunted mannequin. “I might think you actually—“

Worth cuffs him in the back of the head, his free hand delivering an open-palmed smack while he takes a belt from the amber bottle. It’s a sharp hit, enough to earn an _ow, fuck_ in response. The look he gets is incredulous, offended, and yet somehow died back to a state of bewildered mystery. 

“Fuck yer conscience bullshit,” Worth finally bites out, bottle hanging loosely from the neck in his grasp. “Yeh wouldn’t be in here pissin’ an’ moanin’ about m’ bedside manner if yeh actually had an ounce a’ competence in your body. All of yeh, fuckin’ amazing.”

“Oh, so Hanna being attacked by some weird horseman thing is _my_ fault, now?” Conrad asks, and his fists curl at the nod he receives in return to the question.

“ _All_ of yer faults. Stupid as sin, can’t keep that kid outta trouble, then yeh come in and have me patch Little Red Ridin’ Rune back up—“

“Keeping him out of trouble is like keeping you out of a fucking liquor store, jackass.”

The interruption earns another swat, only to be stopped mid-swing when Conrad swivels to grab his wrist with some degree of bruising force. Worth swears under his breath, sucks in air through his teeth, and takes another drink. 

Conrad glares back at him, bony wrist still in hand. “So were you always this much of a callous douche, or do you just need therapy and an AA meeting?”

“What is this, a first date?”

“ _Always_ a dick. Got it.”

There’s a long pause before Worth thrusts the bottle of tequila in Conrad’s general direction, the tension in his shoulders dropping when he gives a protracted sigh. Conrad doesn’t take the offer, which then lets Worth remember that right, he is a vampire. No matter how much tequila is in his bloodstream, there’s no blood in booze. 

“Take a wild guess why I dropped out.” Worth says, an exhausted command. The bottle sits on the last remaining free space on the desk, atop a stack of messy papers. Conrad finally lets go of his wrist, only to cross his arms and close his eyes in an overblown act of thought.

“My money’s on illiteracy or completely flunking out.” Conrad says, finger tapping against his arm. He opens his eyes to look back at Worth with a smug grin. “Am I right, or am I _painfully_ right?”

“I’ve got a BS in pre-med, dickhead,” Worth says, but there’s some degree of a smile on his face. It’s weird, Conrad admits to the existence of some positive expression on Worth as a bizzaro hex, but it’s more welcome than whatever hollow demon was possessing him moments ago. 

“ _You’re bluffing_.”

“I went t’ fuckin’ NYU. Grossman.”

Conrad stares back at him, knowing full well the insinuation is that Worth did well, and at some point, had an obscene amount of money. Certainly passed an MCAT along the way, which is possibly the most un-Worth thing he could have ever guessed. But, by the venom in the way he says _Grossman_ , Conrad knows it’s not a lie. 

“So, why’d you leave, then? Money run out?” Conrad asks, and Worth makes a point of looking back to the exam room, as if he could somehow see everything behind the wood of the door. His hands tent together before picking at the gauze on his arms.

“Yeh ever think about how patient info sounds like bible verses?” Worth asks, which gets a blank stare if only for the insane revelation that Worth gives enough of a damn about the bible to draw that conclusion. “John, 19. Claire, 28. Steven, 14. Like that.”

Conrad clears his throat to absolve him of any lingering ogling of the way Worth seems to quiet himself when he brings up the suggestion, fixated on his own arms. “Can’t say I have.”

Worth looks up from his wrists, head slightly tilted. There’s exhaustion in his expression that his voice barely carries. “Y’think about it more when they die.”

“You dropped out because—“

“I didn’t have th’ balls t’ watch people mistake medicine fer miracles every night a’ my life? Or maybe it was watchin’ people die?” Worth answers with a question that’s not quite a question, pushing a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. He taps the pockets of his coat, quick to fumble through getting a cigarette and jamming the filter between his teeth.

There’s a dead silence between them and the click of the lighter, and Conrad finally notices the flecks of red on the gauze covering Worth’s arms. He hadn’t been picking at his skin, but if blood was— _jesus christ_. Leave it to him, really. Walking around with someone else’s blood on him, despite an apparent attempt to have washed it off if his hands are any sure sign of concern. It’d be poetic if it weren’t so fucking morbid.

Instead, Conrad opts to put a hand out. “Pass me one.”

Worth gives him a side eye of insane proportions. “Since when d’ya smoke, princess?”

Conrad rolls his eyes at the nickname, instead leaning over and taking a cigarette from the coat pocket himself. It’s a risky move, it’s a little too weirdo-intimate, but judging by the lack of protest, it’s probably fine. He mentions something about a _metric fuckton of weed_ in college- art school bullshit and all that jazz. It’s enough of an answer to get Worth to give him a light at least, the two sitting on the table and taking silent drags. 

It was stressful, the bad shape Hanna had been in, and Conrad doesn’t exactly get Worth’s opinion on Hanna, but he knows he has to care somehow. In his own insult you on the operating table sort of way, but it’s still giving a shit. Seeing him visibly shaken feels cruel, almost. Any other day he’d be reveling in the way Worth’s been knocked off his hostile high-horse, but now it’d seem evil. A trespass of some kind.

He doesn’t know when he started leaning against him, maybe an instinct to hunt for some extra bodily warmth in the chill of the clinic. It’s a bitter late November, and being undead doesn’t do Conrad any favors in the cold.

He figures it can’t hurt to ask another question, that maybe Worth actually brought it up because he wants to talk about what the hell happened in New York. That maybe he’s moved on from being a petulant child and learned to use his words.

“Why’d you tell me this?”

The question is quiet and gets a huff in response, a slow drag hazing the air around them. Worth puts a free hand on Conrad’s shoulder, slowly slinking down his back to give a firm clap against his shoulder blade.

“Cause,” He says slowly, staring at the front door of the clinic. “Nobody’s _ever_ gonna believe ya if yeh squeal.”

Of fucking course. Conrad can’t quite make out the tone, if he’s been bluffing the whole time or just pointing out that nobody in their right mind would ever believe he’d ever admit to that, especially to him. 

“Fucker.” Conrad says under a smoke-laiden exhale, opting for the response that gives Worth some plausible deniability to keep up the unshakeable asshole facade. 

“Bitch.” Worth mutters back, hand still idly moving against his back, personal space entirely forgotten in that moment.

It’s going to be a long night.


End file.
